Made and Meant for Each Other
by mille libri
Summary: Friends and family react to the news that Gilbert and Anne are - at long last - engaged.
1. Marilla

_This will be a series of vignettes from friends and family in Avonlea and beyond in response to the news of Gilbert and Anne's engagement. I intend to hit most of the major characters, but I'll happily take requests if there's anyone you want to see in specific. After this, will update on Mondays. Thank you for reading!_

* * *

Marilla Cuthbert had all but given up hope.

It had first sprung up inside her, where hope had rarely had cause to take root, years ago when Anne began to be friends with Gilbert Blythe and reminded Marilla of that long-lost, nearly forgotten romance of her own; then it died when Anne for reasons of her own—foolish, romantic reasons, as Marilla had clucked to herself too often in the intervening years—had refused Gilbert's offer of marriage. That boy Roy Gardner Anne had spent so much time with at college had been nice enough, or so Marilla had heard, but he hadn't been a good solid Avonlea boy—and more, he hadn't been John Blythe's son.

She had tried to learn to live without the hope, to greet Gilbert's mother with a nod when they met and engage in the mutual deception that they weren't bitterly disappointed in Anne's decision, to consider Gilbert as good as engaged to some woman named Christine Stuart whom he had met at Redmond. Gossip certainly held that he was, and Marilla forbore to ask Anne. Regardless of what Anne thought her feelings were, the flash of pain in her grey eyes when Gilbert's name was mentioned was something Marilla chose not to bring up. She knew all too well how stubborn her girl could be, and despaired of it.

When Gilbert nearly died of typhoid, Marilla had seen the depth of Anne's feelings in the silent vigil she had kept, in the hollowness of her eyes the next morning, in the joy and despair that had been in her face when she came in to tell them Pacifique Buote had told her Gilbert would recover. And Marilla and Anne had watched together in silence as Gilbert tramped cheerfully away after the first time he had dropped by once he had recovered, both saddened and disappointed and confused by his frankly comradely tone.

They didn't talk of it, though. Anne had always been careful to hold that particular dream close to her heart, and Marilla had never wanted to encourage her to talk or think about boys—other than that one, and Marilla felt conflicted enough about her deep desire for Anne and Gilbert to make a match of it that she had squashed any temptation toward carrying her conversations with Anne in that direction.

Something about today seemed different, though. Marilla steadfastly rolled dough and smacked Davy's hand away from it when he would have pilfered a bite, pretending not to notice as Anne came down from her room in a brown dress, went back up and changed to a blue one, went back up and changed again to a green one. That Gilbert was coming and they were going on one of their long 'tramps' through the wood Marilla knew; that Anne had awakened to a knowledge of her own feelings for Gilbert she also knew. What Gilbert was thinking Marilla did not know, and the not knowing was driving her wild enough that she nearly let the kettle boil dry while she rolled the pie crust until it was as thin as a sheet of paper and wondered furiously whether these two young people would ever figure out what was what.

At last Gilbert came, whistling merrily. Anne had gone outside to wait for him, and Marilla managed to find a reason to go to the door and watch them when they met. But Gilbert's face gave nothing away, and Marilla sternly forced herself to put the hope aside again and get back to work.

So it was that when Anne came back hours later, and shut the door and leaned against it, standing in unwonted silence, Marilla was not expecting anything particular.

Until Davy said, "Say, Anne, you look real queer. If you're sick, can I have your slice of pie?"

Marilla looked up. Anne did indeed look unusual. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes starry and alight, and she was hesitating there in the doorway without moving, as though she were glued to the spot. "Anne?" she asked, trying to keep that unbidden hope out of her voice.

"I … Marilla, I …"

It was one of very few times in their lives together that Marilla had seen Anne at a loss for words. She clasped her hands together in a gesture she would later find ridiculous in a woman of her own age, and said, "Anne, are you engaged?"

Tears stood in Anne's eyes as she nodded, and Marilla gave a whoop of joy that would make her absolutely cringe when she thought about it later, and clasped her girl tight in her arms, feeling that all was right in the world, at last.


	2. Dora

_Thank you for the enthusiastic response to the first chapter! All your suggestions were great - they've been added to the list._

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Dora hadn't been paying much attention to Anne; as soon as she had come back, Dora had taken her seat at the table, glad that they could all eat now. The food looked good and Dora was hungry. So she was not at all prepared to hear Marilla shriek, more loudly than Dora had ever heard her raise her voice since she and Davy came to live at Green Gables. Dora practically upset her water glass when her knee banged the table as she leaped out of her seat at the sound. She reached out and caught the glass before it could fall, pleased with herself for having avoided the disaster and the resulting mess and clean-up. Dora liked to clean things, but she liked it when they were already tidy and the cleaning came in its proper order, not when they came in the form of some sort of chaos. With Davy around, order was hard to achieve, but Dora managed it as often as she could.

So the happiness that filled the room after Marilla's shriek completely went over Dora's head. She looked up to see Marilla hugging Anne wildly and Anne smiling, her eyes shining in the way that Dora sometimes found beautiful and sometimes found a little uncomfortable, and Mrs. Lynde waving a dish towel in the air. Dora glanced over at Davy, expecting to see him as transported as the others, and found him staring at Anne blankly … almost as if he was about to cry. Briefly, Dora considered calling attention to the fact, to get revenge for sundry times when Davy had teased her mercilessly, but she thought better of it. Davy was far better at revenge than she was, and no one was paying attention to either of them anyway.

Anne was disentangling herself from Marilla, gently but firmly. "It won't be for some time yet. Gilbert has his medical course to finish, so I think I will take the principalship at Summerside."

"I don't see but it's just as well to wait a bit," Mrs. Lynde said. "Plenty of time to make your plans."

"It's been quite some time coming already," Marilla said, but she said it with her face turned away, like she didn't really want anyone to hear her.

Anne blushed anyway. "I … I suppose everyone will think I'm a bit of a goose for taking so long to make up my mind—but then, I've been told many times that they already thought so, anyway. And no one can know how bitterly I regret …" Her voice had dropped, but she shook her head. "Never mind."

"What's past is past," Mrs. Lynde agreed. "No sense kicking yourself over what's done and over with."

Marilla nodded. "Just what I think."

Without a word, Davy turned and rushed out the door. The three older women turned to look after him, looks of impatience and concern on their faces. Dora sighed inwardly. She didn't know what Davy was so upset about—it was plain Anne was getting married to Gilbert Blythe, which everyone had always thought she should anyway. All very well for Anne, and Dora hoped she'd be very happy, but she didn't see why it made much difference in the everyday life of Green Gables. Anne was away so much already they would hardly notice when she went away again. Certainly it was nothing to delay a perfectly good dinner over.

"Anne, you'd better go after him. I'm sure I wouldn't know what to say."

Shaking her head, Anne said, "I'm not sure I do, either, but I'll go see to him." She followed Davy through the door, which he had left standing wide open.

"Might have seen that coming. He thinks the sun rises and sets in her," Mrs. Lynde said.

"I suppose."

Both the old ladies looked down at Dora, as if they had forgotten she was there. "Come along, darlin', we'll get you your dinner," Mrs. Lynde said.

To which Dora assented in relief. She really was hungry.


	3. Davy

_Thank you all so much for reading and for the enthusiastic reception!_

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Davy huddled in the corner of the barn, his knees drawn up to his chest and his face buried in them, trying not to cry. Boys didn't cry; everybody knew that. But when he thought about Anne getting married, his chest felt tight and his eyes prickled and his throat ached.

He had hoped he had gone far enough away that she wouldn't find him … but he hoped she'd come after him, too. So he was disappointed and relieved when he heard her soft voice calling his name. He wasn't going to answer, though. No, sir. And not just because she would be sure to hear the quaver in his voice and think he was crying. No, he wouldn't answer because she could jolly well come find him; he wasn't going to make it easy for her.

She found him anyway, sitting down next to him heedless of her dress and the dirt and hay on the floor. "What is it, Davy-boy?"

He stayed silent.

"Is it … Is it the news? About—about Gilbert?"

Davy could tell she was trying to be sympathetic, but the happy little quiver in her voice when she mentioned Gilbert's name just made it worse. And then he felt bad for being angry when she was so happy, and that made him angry again all over. In the jumble of his thoughts, he couldn't pick one to say, so he didn't.

"You know, it won't be any different from all the times I've gone away before—"

His voice found him unexpectedly, shouting, "It will so!"

"Davy?"

"It will so!" He was on his feet now, his fists clenched. "'Cause you'll go away to live and you won't never come home."

"Won't ever," Anne corrected gently.

"Won't never! If you're gonna go away for good, I'm never usin' good grammar again. I—I won't even go to school. I'll throw all them darned books in Barry's Pond, that's what I'll do." He glared at her, hoping she would see that he meant it, and get up and pat his head and promise not to do it.

"You know I won't be … going away for a long time. Years. By the time I actually do, you won't feel this way any longer."

"Don't tell me how I'll feel! Because you don't care about us and Green Gables. If you did, you wouldn't promise to go away and leave me." He had meant to say "leave us", but the other came out, and with it a shameful great gulping sob. He turned away so Anne couldn't see his face.

Anne got to her feet, coming to him and putting her hands on his shoulders. "I do care, Davy, about Green Gables and everyone here." She gave him a little shake. "Very much including you. And I think I understand what makes the difference—it's that this won't be my home any longer. I—I hadn't really stopped to think about that yet, that having the new home o' dreams with Gilbert would mean that I would have to leave this beloved home behind. But I couldn't have stayed here forever, Davy. Some day you'll grow up, and you'll want to bring a bride home, and then I would be in the way."

"Catch me with any old bride," he growled. "Besides, you could get my supper and put up preserves just as well as any old bride."

She chuckled. "There's a bit more to being married than that. At least, I hope there is, or I wouldn't have agreed to do it." She turned him around, looking down at him. The barn was dark, so he couldn't see her face, but he could hear the softness in her voice. "Some day, Davy, you'll meet someone who belongs to you. You'll want to see her first thing every morning, and last thing every night. You'll want to tell her everything you can think of, and to give her everything you have. And she'll feel the same way about you."

"Why, Anne?"

"I don't know, Davy. Love is a gift. It comes to you even when you don't deserve it. Sometimes, even when you've done everything you can to turn it away. But why it happens, or how—that's the kind of mystery poetry is made for."

Davy wrinkled his nose. Poetry was for girls. "I'll ask Mr. Harrison how he landed Mrs. Harrison. He'll have an answer for me."

"I imagine he will." There was a laugh in Anne's voice now.

"Anne?"

"Yes?"

"Who will answer my questions if you've gone away?"

She sighed, squeezing his shoulder. "I imagine by the time I go away for good, you won't have so many questions—at least, not ones I can answer. But I promise you …" She stooped and looked into his face. "I promise that wherever I am, you can always ask me questions, and I will answer them as well as I am able."

He thought about that. There was still an ache somewhere in the pit of his stomach when he thought about Anne getting married, but it occurred to him that the ache where his dinner should be was a little bit bigger than that one, now.

His stomach rumbled at the thought of dinner, and Anne chuckled. "Shall we go in?"

"Might as well. Marilla's pies aren't as good as Mrs. Lynde's, but I think I can worry a piece down."

"I imagine you'll manage a couple of pieces, if I know you."

"Maybe Mrs. Lynde will make a pie for tomorrow. Dora and me picked a lot of raspberries today."

"Dora and I."

He laughed. "Dora and I."

They went in to dinner together.


	4. Mrs Rachel Lynde

_Sorry I missed last week! I took the week off for the holiday. I hope you all had a safe and happy and warm New Year and wish you the best in the year to come! Thank you for reading!_

* * *

It was a Providence, that was what. After everything—after all the years when Anne would pretend she didn't know Gilbert was alive, a thin ruse Mrs. Rachel Lynde prided herself on having seen through all along; after the years before they went to college when everyone assumed it was all but settled between them; after the ridiculous years when they pretended they didn't care about one another and got themselves entangled with other people; after Gilbert's illness and the way Anne had looked when she found it out … well, it wasn't so much a Providence, when you looked at it like that, Rachel thought, sighing and shaking her head and laughing a little to herself. She'd got so she did that now. She'd never been used to being alone, and Thomas had been there so much in his later years, she was used to having an audience. And the best kind of audience, too, she thought fondly—the kind who listened and interjected only when asked and never argued.

She spent a fair amount of time in Marilla's kitchen, talking to her, but there you had the twins—Davy, at least—interrupting. And while Marilla would listen, it was with half an ear while she was busy with other things, and she did sometimes argue. She'd gotten positively spirited since Anne had come along, especially when you compared her to the old days. Sometimes Rachel liked a good argument—but other times it was nice just to talk things over with a sympathetic listener.

Picking the rolling pin up off her piecrust, Rachel frowned. What had she been thinking of, before she went off on a tangent? That happened a lot, too, nowadays. You started off thinking about one thing and found later you were off on something else entirely. She would have thought it had to do with getting old, but Anne had always been prone to that kind of thing.

Oh, that was it. Anne, and Gilbert Blythe, engaged at last. Just as it should be. A mercy Gilbert never gave up on Anne, the dance she'd led him. But Anne wasn't like other girls, never had been, and Rachel supposed if you had your heart set on her you weren't going to find another one like her any too soon. Funny how Anne had always been so romantic and never seen what was right under her own nose. But then, people never did, did they? Sometimes you had to think you might lose something before you knew what it meant.

Rachel turned her piecrust into the tin and turned to start picking through the raspberries that were to go in it. Take Green Gables, for instance, and Marilla herself. Rachel had never realized how much she cared for her friend until the prospect had been held before her that she might never see her again. She was everlastingly grateful that Marilla had seen it the same way and made her the offer to come live at Green Gables. To be sure, it had benefits on both sides—how Marilla would ever have coped with that imp of a Davy by herself was a thought not to be considered. Rachel had a hard enough time with his never-ending questions, although now at least she could put them to use by making him write them down for Anne, which kept him still for whole minutes at a time. He was pretty knacky with the animals, when he wasn't teasing the life out of them, though, and Dora was real useful in the house. Yes, all things considered, they were making things work here pretty well. And a good thing, too, with Anne engaged.

Smiling, Rachel continued to pick over her raspberries while she considered which kind of pattern to make Anne for a wedding quilt.


	5. Phil Blake

_Thank you all for reading!_

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Philippa Blake sank into one of the wooden chairs next to the kitchen table, rejoicing in the table's well-scrubbed cleanliness and the general sparkle of the room around her. Thinking of all the naysayers who had predicted her speedy renunciation of the household drudgery that came with being a poor parson's wife and equally speedy return to her father's protection, she couldn't help but gloat a little to herself over how neatly she was managing so far. She had indulged herself in a good long gloat in her last letter to Anne, and so she was thinking of what Anne's reply might be while she slit open the envelope with the familiar handwriting on the outside.

 _Dearest Phil –_

 _Oh, you wisest of Philippas, how you will crow when I tell you that you have been right again. If I didn't wish so much to see your face when I tell you my news, I'd be glad to be far from you when you find out in order to avoid the coals of fire you'll heap on my poor, foolish head._

"Jo Blake!" Phil cried, before she'd read another word. "She's gone and done it."

"Gone and done what?" She heard the scrape of his chair across the floor as he got up and came to the doorway of the kitchen. The smudge of ink on his cheek and the matching smudge on his fingers told her he had been in the middle of writing his sermon, and her heart smote her. She did try so hard not to disturb him in his few hours of peace and quiet. The cares of the parish took up so much of his time otherwise. Not that he begrudged the time he gave to the needs of others—Jonas Blake was ever generous with his time and his patience, as Phil knew to her own great benefit. But it left little time to do the mental work being a minister required.

"I'm sorry," she told him, instantly contrite. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

He came to her, standing behind her chair and putting his big hands on her shoulders. "I always have time for you."

"I know it." Warmth filled her as she turned her face up to be kissed. To think there were people who had thought this man could never make her happy!

"Now," he said as the kiss ended, "tell me who has gone and done what."

"Queen Anne. She's finally accepted her fate—and Gilbert Blythe."

"Excellent news!" Jo said heartily. He had of course heard all about Anne and Gilbert and Stella and Priscilla and the cats and Aunt Jimsie, all the denizens of Patty's Place, many times over. But he remembered, too. Phil had never been used to people remembering what she'd said to them, much less paying the kind of grave attention Jonas always did. "When will they be married?"

"Oh! I didn't read that far," Phil realized. She hastily read over the lines looking for the details, knowing she would read and reread the letter later. "Not for several years yet; Master Blythe intends to be a doctor, so he'll be studying hard while Anne works. She's going to be a high school principal." Phil chuckled to herself, thinking of Anne at the head of a high school. Of course, others had chuckled thinking of her as a minister's wife, and Anne was certainly every bit as capable as she was of making a success of whatever she turned her hand to.

"That sounds like a sensible plan," Jo approved. He kissed her again, to prove the wisdom of their own determination to skip the sensible plan and go right on to be married. "Since I'm here, what can I do to help with supper?"

"Not a thing! I can handle it."

"I know you can, my clever, capable bride … but I like to help anyway. So give me a task."

"Very well, you can peel the potatoes," Phil conceded, knowing she still left massive chunks of potato attached to the peelings when she did it. One more household task she intended to master someday. "But don't dirty up my table!" she added with mock severity.

Jo laughed and kissed her again. "I promise to clean up every errant peel."

Phil smiled, getting to her feet and moving to the cupboard to begin getting out the pots and pans she would need. She wished Anne and Gilbert as much joy in their marriage as she had in hers; although how anyone could be as happy as she without being married to Jonas Blake, she was sure she didn't know.


	6. Miss Stacy

_Thank you all for reading! Special thanks to elizasky for suggestions and discussion that improved this chapter._

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Smiling over the absurdities therein, Muriel Stacy put the last of the student compositions on the completed stack. As always, one or two showed promise, one or two showed a sad lack of understanding of the principles of grammar, and quite a few had been entertaining. There was a certain brown-eyed boy who sat in the back from whom she expected great things, and he had shown flashes of rare insight in his paper. She was encouraging his father to send him to Queen's in a couple of years, but he was needed at home, as well. She sighed for all the children she had taught whose potential had been sacrificed for the needs of their families—although most of them had made the sacrifice cheerfully, and many had gone on to stretch themselves intellectually by taking courses through the mail and reading good books. She liked to tell her students that they should never let an opportunity to further their education pass them by, and she rejoiced in the numbers who still wrote to her to let her know of their accomplishments.

A letter from one of those students lay on her desk right now. She had been saving it until she finished grading papers, and now she picked it up with a clear conscience. Looking at the neat, pretty writing, she thought of the days when this same young lady had filled her pages with elaborate loops and curls, and purple prose to match. Anne Shirley had come a long way since Miss Stacy's first days at Avonlea school.

"Dear Miss Stacy," she read. "I have wonderful news to share, news I think you will approve of very highly. Gilbert Blythe and I plan to be married. It has been a long time coming—I wonder if you know how long. I'm sure you must. Looking back at that ridiculous feud we had, all those years when we didn't speak to one another, I think you must have seen that essential spark that drew us to one another."

Miss Stacy's smile widened. Hadn't she just. From her earliest days at Avonlea school, she had seen the way her two best students were drawn to each other, and the way that Anne, at least, refused to acknowledge any such attraction. Not that Miss Stacy was particularly given to match-making among her students—they were all so young, younger every year, it seemed, and they all did more than enough dreaming and scheming of that nature on their own, without any encouragement from her. But to see two such enthusiastic and capable students, two such similar minds, questioning and dreaming, and know that they were kept apart by the memory of a single mistake when they could have collaborated with and learned so much from each other … Well, Miss Stacy had done her best to gently nudge them in the direction of forgiveness and understanding. At the time, she had despaired that her efforts had fallen on deaf ears, but now she saw that they were seeds that had only needed time and growth to take root.

Anne went on in her letter to frankly acknowledge her own faults in the relationship as it had grown and evolved over the years—possibly too frankly, although Miss Stacy saw few signs in the letter of Anne's sometimes too eager reveling in blame, the product of a fevered and untutored imagination. She was maturing into the young woman Miss Stacy had always hoped to see her become. She was glad to see that despite the years it had taken to reach this point, Anne and Gilbert weren't rushing into matrimony, but were sensibly working and waiting until the time should be right. She smiled over the repetition of the phrase "home o' dreams", wondering what Anne's real home would look like, what troubles would touch it.

Glancing at the stack of papers in front of her, Miss Stacy gave some thought to some of the "homes o' dreams" she had imagined over the years, none of which had ever come to exist. Would she be happier if they had? Would raising and teaching her own children have given her as much joy, as much of a sense of work well accomplished, as her years of teaching the children of others had done?

In the end, she doubted it. Returning Anne's letter to its envelope, she rose from her seat and briskly began setting the classroom to rights, preparing it for the next day's lessons. She had chosen the path she was on, chosen it several times over, and she didn't regret the decision.


	7. Diana

_Author's note: On rereading the book, I realized that baby Fred had actually been born by the time this scene would have happened. Whoops! Rather than rewrite the scene, I'm going to leave it up as a reminder to myself to check the source material before writing and posting! Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"And in just a few weeks, we'll be eating your nice fresh red tomatoes." Diana Wright patted the baby plant affectionately, then looked around to make sure no one had heard her. Anne had always been whimsical about her plants, talking to them as if they were people. Diana had never put any particular stock in it—but after all, it couldn't hurt. And with Fred off working the farm so much during the days, it did get kind of lonesome around the place. It was nice to have something to talk to, even if it was only her garden.

She leaned back on her heels, sighing wearily as she put a hand on her back, not quite sure she was ready to stand yet. Her other hand unconsciously caressed her belly. "Soon I'll have you to talk to," she said to the little person growing inside it, and felt significantly less foolish for talking to him. Her? She was certainly hoping for a little Anne.

Even as she thought the name, she heard the original Anne calling her name. "Back here!" she called, trying to struggle to her feet, hampered by her skirt, the soft earth she knelt in, and the heavy weight of her stomach.

Anne chuckled at her, reaching a hand down to help her up. "Did it occur to you that this was no time to be down on your knees?"

"Well, if I don't stay ahead of these weeds while I can they'll take over entirely," Diana pointed out. "They might anyway, in a few more weeks," she added, her hand stealing down to caress her stomach again.

"I'll come over and help as much as I can. What wouldn't I do for my dearest bosom friend?" Anne put her arm around Diana's shoulders, and Diana let herself lean against her friend. Anne was slender as always, but surprisingly strong for all that. She helped Diana into the house and insisted she take a seat in the rocker while Anne made tea.

If it had been anyone else, Diana would have protested, ashamed to be seen resting in her own kitchen while someone else did her work for her. But this was Anne—they had no secrets from each other.

The thought made her look more sharply at Anne, who was humming to herself, a faraway smile on her face as she got out cups and crockery and sliced bread. Not that Anne didn't often have that kind of smile, she spent so much of her life dreaming, but this seemed different. While she was far away, she was also wide awake. "Anne Shirley. Something's happened, hasn't it?"

Anne looked up, startled, and a little guilty, Diana thought. "What makes you say that?"

"Because you never could keep a secret. At least not from me." Diana thought suddenly of Gilbert Blythe. Anne had said very little about him since his illness, but she'd had a new look whenever his name was mentioned, softer and more thoughtful. From long years' experience, Diana knew a direct question about that particular person went nowhere with Anne, so instead she stretched out her feet, leaning back in the rocker, and asked, "Did Dora's prize hen finally lay an egg?"

"No." Anne glanced at Diana, frowning, as she put the plate of bread on the table. "Why would you ask?"

"I know she's been hoping it would."

"Oh. No, not so far as I know."

"And Davy's work with Mr. Harrison, that's going well?"

Anne laughed. "Too well." Then, suddenly, and for no reason, she blushed and turned away.

Diana was even more sure now than ever that it had to do with Gilbert. "I heard Josie Pye was going about with Gilbert Blythe," she said deliberately.

"Have you?" Anne's voice was studiedly casual, but she couldn't control the indignant straightening of her back at the very idea.

"They were seen together in the store at Carmody."

Anne whirled around, her eyes blazing. "They were not! Gilbert—" She caught herself, narrowing her eyes at Diana, who couldn't restrain a smile at the success of her gambit. "Diana Wright. You've heard already, haven't you?"

"Not a word. And I'm waiting impatiently!"

"All right, then, if you must. I meant to tell you over tea, properly, but—oh, Diana, Gilbert and I are getting married!"

Diana restrained the tart, "Well, it's about time," that rose to her lips, but only just. Instead she struggled out of the rocker and to her feet, crossing to her friend and enveloping her in a hug. "Anne, that is the best news I've heard in a long time."

"You mean, 'it's about time', don't you?" Anne chuckled against Diana's shoulder.

"Maybe."

"You're a dear not to say it. Now, you sit here, and I'll pour your tea, just the way you like it, and you can ask all the questions I can tell you're dying to ask." Anne took the seat opposite Diana, trying to look demure, and failing utterly, her eyes shining too happily to pretend that was at all calm about this new development.

Diana remembered her own betrothal, how sweet the moment had been when Fred asked her, and how she had held it close to her heart, not even talking about it with Anne, not in any detail, and forbore to ask about Anne's moment of engagement, despite her curiosity. "Tell me all about your plans. Gilbert is still studying to be a doctor, I understand. Are you going to get married before, or after?"

Anne looked at her in surprise, then gratitude, and they dwelt on the practical details for the rest of tea … almost entirely.


	8. Miss Lavendar

_Apologies for the super-long posting gap. It shouldn't happen again. Thank you for sticking with me!_

* * *

The letter from Anne was a slim one, and that worried Lavendar Irving. Usually Anne's letters were fat with words—long, newsy, imaginative, dreamy updates for Lavendar and intricate flights of fancy for Paul, with remembrances lavishly given to Stephen and to Charlotta the Fourth and her growing brood of roly-poly babies. This one … Lavendar studied it suspiciously.

She looked up across the breakfast table to see Stephen's eyes on her, warm and amused. "It won't bite you."

"It might."

"Not all slender letters come with bad news," he pointed out, and smiled. "My laddie's letter was short, hastily dashed off as he went off to school, but it contained the best news I'd heard in many a year."

Lavendar returned the smile, as grateful as Stephen that Paul's hasty letter had included a brief mention of his visit to Echo Lodge. Without that … well, they might not be here. She looked at Anne's slender envelope again with optimism restored.

Stephen returned to his toast and marmalade, but she could feel him waiting, so she relented and slit the letter open with her butterknife.

 _Dearest Lavendar—_

 _Of course this comes with all my wishes for happiness in the Irving household, and many kisses for Charlotta the Fourth and her family. Dear thing, I can't even write her name without smiling. Or yours, either. Nothing could have been more perfect than the way your lovely fairy-tale came to a close … except possibly the way mine seems to have begun. Yes, at long last—and I can hear you, in prose, as Charlotta the Fourth would say, scolding me for not knowing my own mind in your gentle way, as you have done so often—at long last, as I say, I have seen what should have been so obvious all along, that there has never been anyone for me but Gilbert Blythe, and there never will be. Thankfully, he has the patience of a saint and has forgiven me for all my former foolishness … and we plan to be married. It will be some time yet before we can, as Gilbert has years of schooling yet before he's ready to practice medicine, so I will work and wait and learn some of that patience that has never come naturally to me._

 _I think you know what I am feeling as I write this, so many emotions that I can't put a name to them all, so I won't even try. Please pass my news along to Paul in whatever way seems best to you and tell him that I am working on a response to his last letter and hope to have it to him soon._

 _Love to all!_

 _Anne_

Lavendar finished the letter with tears in her eyes. She could practically see that earnest face with the bright, dreamy eyes in front of her, hear the new womanly softness that she imagined must have come to Anne's voice with the awakening of love, at last. It had taken a long time, but … She stole a glance at Stephen's handsome face across the table. She was the last person to chastise someone else for not knowing their own mind, or for acting with foolish haste. She had tried carefully to steer Anne Gilbert-wards in her letters, but without pushing.

"And?" Stephen asked.

"She is marrying Gilbert Blythe."

"Excellent!" Stephen said heartily. "A good choice. She'll wake him up and teach him how to dream dreams." His eyes shone at Lavendar with a light that said he wasn't really talking about Gilbert and Anne.

"And he'll keep her feet somewhere within the vicinity of the ground," she replied, loving the sturdy practicality of him as much as she did the way he allowed himself to take flight in imagination with her.

"Not too close, I hope."

"Close enough to reach."

They gazed at each other across the table, the letter forgotten on Lavendar's plate.


	9. Paul Irving

_Thank you all for reading, and for your enthusiasm for this story!_

* * *

Later, Lavendar caught Paul in his room as he was just sitting down to his books. She rejoiced in the fond smile he gave her when she came in—her little dream boy who had lived with her so long had given her looks of far greater adoration, but they had not been nearly as hard-won as the path she had taken to motherhood of this dear boy, and they had been rather cloying, when you came right down to it. Paul was a dreamer himself, but he was also all boy, clunking around the house and loud of voice and decided in opinion. He had all the practicality Stephen's mother could stuff into him along with the porridge, and a tender, sensitive soul that Lavendar loved to uncover and nurture and help to grow.

"What is it, Mother Lavendar?" he asked, and she realized she had allowed herself to lapse into thought rather obviously. "Dreaming again?" His eyes twinkled mischievously, but something in them understood, as well. He was often caught by flights of fancy in mid-conversation. They were kindred spirits in that way.

"A little. Dreams of the future."

"Oh?" She was struck by how deep and mature his voice sounded, suddenly. The little boy was still there, but the man was coming. She rejoiced and sorrowed at it, and wished she had had more time with the child he had been. What fun they would have had by the shore with his rock people. "Whose future?" Paul asked. His mouth set itself mutinously. "Father hasn't been talking about the boarding school again, has he? Because for all its advantages—"

"No, nothing like that," she hastened to assure him. Stephen had brought up the school, only a few hours away from their home, once or twice, as an option for Paul, and Paul's reaction had been immediate and forceful. And she understood. For as much as she wished she had had more time with Paul, Paul wished twice as much to have had more time with his father. Her, as well, but Stephen's absence had been a hard one for the boy to bear as a small child. She completely understood why he wouldn't want to be separated from his father again. "Consider the subject dropped."

"Good."

"No, the future I was dreaming of was Anne's."

His eyebrows flew up in a way that was just his father's. "My teacher! Has she written?"

"She did, but it was a short letter. She asked me to tell you that she's working out the response to your latest and will have it to you soon. She's been a little distracted."

"Is she all right?" Paul asked in concern. Anne had been the first adult since his mother's passing to touch his heart and meet him in the place where dreams lived, and she would always hold a special place there.

"She is. She's getting married," Lavendar said gently, wondering as she said it whether Paul was ready to consider his "beautiful Teacher" as a woman.

"To Gilbert Blythe?" Paul asked after a moment's consideration.

"Yes."

"I thought she might." He smiled. "He's real; like Father is."

Lavendar nodded, proud of the thoughtful and intelligent young man Paul was growing up to be. "Very much so."

"Mother Lavendar? Am I real?"

"Yes, Paul. You have the best of both worlds. You're real, but you know the way to Fairyland. I hope you always will."

He stood up, and she looked up and up into his face as his long body unfolded from the chair. Putting his arms around her with boyish enthusiasm, he said, "I promise to. And … to show others the way, if it's at all possible. The way you've shown Father."

"You showed him first, and your Little Mother, too," Lavendar told him.

"Yes, but not the same. I'm glad you've come, Mother Lavendar."

"So am I, Paul."

She left him to his work with a light heart.


	10. Josie Pye

_Thank you all for reading!_

* * *

Josie Pye had spent a good hour wandering the store, looking for something. What, she didn't know … but whatever it was, they clearly didn't carry it in Carmody. Restlessly she trailed a finger along the edge of a bolt of gingham fabric, her nose wrinkling in scorn. Gingham was for little girls, and she was not that anymore.

Then she looked up and saw a pair of broad shoulders at the desk, paying for a purchase, and she smiled. Things were looking up. Coming closer, she recognized the rich brown of the hair and the way it curled on the back of the neck—after all, she had spent enough time looking at that very sight for years in Avonlea School. Never mind that the head the hair was attached to was always turned in the direction of that pale, big-eyed snippet of an Anne Shirley, she thought spitefully. That was all behind him now … which left Gilbert Blythe very much available. Yes, things were definitely looking up.

"Why, Gilbert Blythe!" she said in faked surprise. "What are you doing here?"

He turned around. Josie felt a flash of irritation when he didn't seem happy to see her, but she pushed it aside. He always had been a little high and mighty, but that just made him more interesting. "Hello, Josie," he said politely.

"Isn't it nice to run into each other like this?" She slipped her arm through his as he collected his bag from the counter. "In town for the day?"

"Yes, running a few errands for my mother."

"What a devoted son."

He shrugged. There was something in his hazel eyes, a laugh that made Josie uncomfortable because it always seemed as though he was laughing at her—or at least amused by her, which wasn't at all the reaction she wanted from him.

"Let's go and do something, Gilbert. Here I am, here you are—why waste a perfectly nice day?"

The laugh deepened, his eyes crinkling with it. "I'm afraid not, Josie."

"Why ever not?" She maintained her smile, and her arm looped through his, but was beginning to wish she hadn't bothered. Handsome as Gilbert was, she never really had understood him.

"I'm … meeting someone later. Back in Avonlea."

Well. If that didn't just take the cake. It didn't take a genius to recognize that moony, calf-eyed look on his face, or to figure out who had put it there. "How nice for you," Josie said, not caring that she sounded utterly insincere. She'd never understood what he, or anyone, saw in Anne Shirley in the first place, and now to have Anne snag one of the best-looking boys in Avonlea, and the one with the brightest future … Josie wondered uncomfortably if she should have gone out with Moody Spurgeon MacPherson when he'd asked her. Then she tossed her head. Moody Spurgeon! Not likely. "I'm sure you'll both be very happy," she said to Gilbert, withdrawing her arm from his.

"I'm sure we will be, too." But he wasn't looking at her now. He was staring off into space, a daft smile on his face, and if he didn't look for all the world like Anne right now, Josie would eat her new hat with the striped ribbon.

She flounced off, feeling entirely unsatisfied with the encounter, and with life in general.


	11. Mrs Harmon Andrews

_Thank you all for reading!_

* * *

The news was the talk of the sewing circle, spreading out from Rachel Lynde, whose mouth seemed to be moving as quickly as her needle. Rachel was a hard worker, true enough, but she did run off at the mouth, thought Mrs. Harmon Andrews as she carefully snipped a loose thread. She kept her head down, not wanting to seem too interested in the news of Anne Shirley's engagement. Who was Anne Shirley, anyway, but a foundling, plucked from the orphans' home by the Cuthberts? Plucked by mistake, at that, Mrs. Harmon added silently.

She conveniently liked to forget that her own Billy had proposed to said foundling—that, too, she considered a mistake, and was more than grateful that she had never had to put her foot down and forbid the match. Billy's wife Nettie was a lovely girl, sweet and biddable and capable, and had already presented Mrs. Harmon with two bouncing grandsons. A complete success, in other words. Still, for all that, Mrs. Harmon had long thought with satisfaction of Anne's single, childless state, and now to hear that after all this time she was to gain the prize of John and Martha Blythe's precious only son … Words would have failed Mrs. Harmon, had she not been so determined to keep silent.

Of course, when you thought about it, what was so special about Gilbert Blythe, anyway? Anyone else's son—Mrs. Harmon's, for example—would be as much of a catch. Rachel needn't crow so about Anne marrying a doctor. You would think Anne was her own child. Mrs. Harmon frowned, remembering how dead set Rachel had been against the girl when she first arrived. Anne had talked her around soon enough, just as she had pulled the wool over everyone's eyes eventually. Not Mrs. Harmon's, thank you very much! She remembered all too well the scrapes Jane had gotten into following along with Anne and her freakish ways. Entirely too free for a young girl, and Marilla's hold on those little apron-strings had never been as firm as she pretended to herself. More work would have settled Anne right down from the start.

Not that it had hurt Jane any, Mrs. Harmon reflected with a smile, beginning her next seam. Jane was safely married to a millionaire, happy and secure and set for life. They lived rather too far away for Mrs. Harmon to properly appreciate Jane's services—she would love to travel to Winnipeg, and stay in their big house and be fed by their cook, but Mr. Harmon was more settled in his ways than that, and Ralphie was still a little young to leave to his father's care. With some reluctance, Mrs. Harmon had to admit to herself that Ralphie was something of a handful. She tugged her thoughts guiltily away from Mr. Barry's apple trees, many of which now had Ralphie's initials carved in them.

Still … Jane and Billy had done well for themselves. Grace was at Queen's, and Ralphie … well, he was high-spirited. Nothing wrong with that. Mrs. Harmon could hold her head up amongst any of her fellows. Yes. She nodded firmly, finishing off the seam and holding the completed shirt out in front of her. Rachel was still nattering on about Anne and Gilbert's wedding plans, and Mrs. Harmon graciously allowed a smile to show on her face and pretended to be interested. It seemed the least she could do.


	12. Jane Andrews Inglis

_Thank you all for reading!_

* * *

Jane Andrews Inglis closed her mother's letter with a sigh, tucking it carefully back into the envelope and putting the envelope away in the drawer where she kept correspondence to be responded to. Third or fourth in the stack she had the letter from Anne that had come a few days ago, filled with her news. If Jane were to tell the truth, she found both Anne's exuberance and airs and her mother's long-held bitterness rather tiresome … and far removed from her life now.

She looked around her tidy room with quiet satisfaction. Muted blues and creams, a hint of grey here and there. No bright colors to mar the peacefulness, all the lines rounded and soft. Now that she had money and space to indulge her own taste, she had found she had a surprising knack for creating a room. Mr. Inglis's study was very different—there it was heavy wood and dark greens, a thinner carpet to make it easier for the maid to sweep the cigar ashes off the rug, everything carefully squared up. And the bedroom they shared … well, Jane had surprised herself there in other ways, she thought, feeling her cheeks heat. That Avonlea believed it was a match made for money, she knew perfectly well—but Avonlea was far, far away, and Mr. Inglis and the life they shared together were here.

No more small, cramped houses, no more cluttered rooms filled with people and their things. Jane Inglis's Winnipeg mansion had light, and air, and space—and a place for everything to be neatly put away.

Jane stood up, shutting up the desk and the news that it contained. She supposed she was pleased enough for Anne and Gilbert. They had made enough fuss about each other, each in their own ways, all those years in Avonlea school, and after, and it had been plain to all the girls from that first day when Gilbert called Anne "carrots" that he had eyes for no one else. It had surprised Jane somewhat at first that Anne had so little interest, but as she got to know her old friend, to hear the dreams that lived behind those grey eyes, she had understood better—and pitied Anne not a little. Dreams such as those so rarely came true, the mysterious dashing dark-haired stranger and the queenly beauty, the raptures of happiness and the depths of despair. Far better to be practical, to want for things within one's reach, and to work soberly and with purpose toward your goal.

Smiling, Jane considered that she had achieved more of an idyl than she had ever imagined. But Mr. Inglis never felt like a millionaire, and she never felt like a queen. In his eyes, in his arms, she felt neither more nor less than Jane—and for the first time, knew that it was all right to just be Jane. Surrounded by the others, by Anne's darting intelligence, Diana and Ruby's showy beauty, Josie's sharp eye and sharper tongue, Jane had often felt that she wasn't … enough, somehow. But now she was. Just exactly enough.

Let Anne have her raptures—she would, anyway, and no doubt would enjoy them, until she settled down into the quiet routines of daily life—and let her mother have her jealousies and her bitterness and her sly crowing about Jane's achievement as though Mrs. Harmon had had something to do with it. Jane had Mr. Inglis, and she had herself, and she needed nothing else.


	13. Mr Harrison

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

Mr. Harrison looked up from his paper as Anne came across his door yard. "Took you long enough." She blushed as only a red-head can, and he chuckled. "I have to hear the big news from Davy?"

"I've been … busy?"

"No doubt." He chuckled again, enjoying the deepening blush as she caught his meaning. She was teetering between embarrassment and outrage, so he pulled back a bit. "I suppose you've had quite enough of hearing 'I told you so'?"

"Yes, thank you," Anne said coolly, moving Emily's knitting off the other chair and sinking down onto it.

"Almost makes you wish you'd listened to your friends and neighbors before this, doesn't it?"

Instead of responding indignantly, as he'd expected, Anne's face whitened, and she looked down at her hands in her lap. "If … Oh, Mr. Harrison, how close I came to being too late. And all because I didn't know my own mind."

"It all comes of living in dreams instead of in life," he said kindly. "You dream too much, Anne."

He was surprised to hear her admit, softly, "I know I do."

"Now, Anne!" He folded his paper and put it down on the table, leaning toward her. "What's this?"

"I said I know I do. When I think that Gilbert would have died … when I remember the look on his face the first time he—" She caught herself, shaking her head. "When I think of the time I wasted on Roy Gardiner, breaking Gilbert's heart, and all because I was too caught up in dreaming to see what was right in front of me …" She looked up at him, her eyes burning in her white face. "I may never dream again."

That sounded more like the Anne he knew, and he sat back in the chair with a comfortable laugh. "Oh, you will. You can't help it."

"I mean it!" Now she was indignant, and he nodded, continuing to poke at her. Anne just needed waking up a little, was all.

"I know you mean it—now. But how many times have you imagined what your first house will be like?" She scowled. "Uh-huh. I thought so. Got a fancy name for it, too, don't you?"

"Ye-es," she admitted, reluctantly.

"You see? You can't help it. And you shouldn't. People like Gilbert—and Emily, for that matter—the busy folks who are always go-go-go, always something to do, they need people like you and me, to sit them down and show them how pretty the fields look when the sun hits them just the right way."

She turned to look at him, thoughtfully, and he thought how she had matured since he'd first met her. She was coming along nicely, in fact. "Do you really think so, Mr. Harrison?"

He nodded. "And we need them, too, Anne. Remember how I lived before Emily came? I was happy as a pig in slop … but a lot less useful. Emily wakes me up and reminds me to get things done, and then I tug her out here on the porch and make her watch the sunset. 'Course, she knits right along, but she looks, too. So Gilbert will bring plenty of real life home to you and you'll show him that it's not all life and death emergencies, and I think you'll go along just fine, all things considered."

Anne smiled. "Thank you, Mr. Harrison. I admit, I've heard all I need to about the trials of being a doctor's wife, and the tragedies he'll have to deal with, and how much I have to learn. It's nice to be told I already have something to contribute."

"I imagine Gilbert thinks you're pretty much perfect."

"Oh, I don't know." But her renewed blush answered him, as if he'd needed the confirmation.

"Wouldn't be much of a prospective bridegroom if he didn't."

Anne looked over at him. "Thank you for talking things over with Davy. I think he needed a man's perspective."

"Didn't occur to you that he wouldn't take it the way everyone else did?"

"No," she admitted. "Not initially. Out of curiosity, what did you say to him?"

Mr. Harrison grinned. "I pointed out that he couldn't boss you around any."

"You mean the way you boss Mrs. Harrison?" Anne asked slyly, and he laughed outright.

"Between you, me, and those old ladies over there, we'll make sure he lands square in the hands of a woman like Emily one day."

Anne sobered. "Not so much me, I imagine."

"Well, maybe not. But you've gotten him a good start, Anne—you've given him a high ideal to reach for."

That blush pinkened her cheeks one more time. "Thank you."

"Now, what do you say you go find that cake Emily hid this morning and we have a real good jolly tea, just like old times?"

"I don't mind if I do."

They chattered like a couple of magpies for an hour or so until Emily drove up. Watching Anne tripping off across the fields home, Mr. Harrison sighed.

Emily glanced at him from the chair Anne had just vacated. "Penny for your thoughts, James?"

"I was just thinking … Davy isn't the only one who's going to miss her when she goes."

"You old softy." Emily's hand stole out and captured his, and they sat there like that watching the sunset.


	14. Priscilla

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* * *

So Anne had seen the light at last, had she? Priscilla Grant smiled to herself. Anne was unparalleled for stubbornness and for being unable to see what was right in front of her for the stars in her eyes. Apparently one of those stars had taken on Gilbert's shape, finally, and Priscilla was glad to hear it. The look in Gilbert's eyes sometimes when he had looked at Anne … Even back in Queen's days, you could see that he preferred her, even when Anne refused to speak to him or even acknowledge his existence. And sometimes—very rarely—you could catch Anne with her eyes on a certain bent head, a puzzled frown on her face as if reality was somehow intruding on her dreams in a way she found not entirely unpleasant.

Next to Anne's letter on the desk was another letter that brought Priscilla sharply back into her own reality—one in which dreams suddenly and unexpectedly beckoned. A connection of Priscilla's father's had a post open, teaching in a Japanese school, and Priscilla had been offered the position. She had been hesitating. Japan was far off; too far to come back if the position didn't suit, too far to lean on familiar shoulders if she found the challenge greater than she anticipated. This decision, once made, could not be taken back. But by the same token, the opportunity, once passed up, was unlikely to come again. And much as Priscilla loved her home and the charming little pupils she had taught in a series of small country schools, the chance to go and teach new students, on the far side of the world, people whose lives were entirely different from anything she had ever known, who perhaps had as little awareness of what her life and those of her friends had been like—to find the differences and similarities between them … Could she fail to leap at such a chance?

She had been on the verge of regretfully declining the offer when Anne's letter arrived. Her ink and paper were already laid out, the salutation to her father's connection already written. Now she looked again at the two envelopes lying side by side, comparing them. Anne had been lucky—her destiny as embodied in Gilbert Blythe had come knocking again and again and again, because Gilbert was at least Anne's equal in stubbornness, and he had known for certain just what he wanted for a good long time. Priscilla's destiny might not be so determined. It might be dangling a lure into the water once, and once only, and if she didn't leap for it now she would lose it. Of course, another lure might come along, just as shiny; it was hard to say.

How she missed the dear old days of Patty's Place! The four of them curled up studying, Aunt Jamesina and the cats, their cheerful Friday evenings with guests and their even more cheerful Sunday morning breakfasts, just the five of them, talking over the events of the weekend. Things had been very simple then, life bounded by the next test and the next class and the next year to prepare for. Now here they were scattered around, almost certainly never to all be together again in the same room. If Priscilla went to Japan, they definitely never would—making a journey of that distance was enough of an undertaking that she wouldn't want to come back soon.

Priscilla allowed herself a moment to imagine that, years of studying another culture, learning their language and their ways. The idea entranced her as much as the difficulty daunted her. There were other teachers in the school, from English-speaking countries the world around, so she wouldn't be alone in her discoveries; she would have companionship of like-minded souls. In her mind, there was a room for the teachers to gather where they could be cozy studying the Japanese language and preparing their lessons. There would be laughter and mutual support. It might be just like Patty's Place.

She looked at Anne's letter again. What if it weren't like Patty's Place at all? What if the other teachers were standoffish, or distant? Did it matter? "Opportunity knocks but once," she remembered reading once. "If taken at the time 'twill lead to fortune." If Anne had taken Gilbert at the time, at the first knock of opportunity, what years of longing on his part and confusion on hers might they have been spared? They could never know. Nor could Priscilla know what would happen if she took this position if she was too afraid to reach for it.

Determinedly, she reached for her pen. She had never quailed before an opportunity before; she wouldn't do so now. Instead of the "no" she had intended when she began her letter, instead she wrote, "Thank you for your generous offer. I will be glad to take it."


	15. Mrs Allan

_This chapter deals with issues of infant loss._

* * *

Mrs. Allan patted the earth firm around the newly planted rosebush next to the front porch, and sat back on her heels to survey the results. Yes, these bright pink blossoms would be a spot of cheer all summer long, she decided. Leaning back further, she looked at the house itself. It was coming to feel like home, at last. It had taken some time to let go of the life she had left behind in Avonlea—and in particular the small grave where so many of her hopes had been buried. But at last, thanks to the two pairs of little feet that kept their new home lively and to the welcoming arms of the new community, she was beginning to put down roots. Literally, she thought with a smile, giving a last pat to the dirt under the rosebush.

Thinking of putting down roots made her think of Anne Shirley, who had been so fond of the concept of soul-roots. Mrs. Allan couldn't help but chuckle at the memory of the earnest little girl, speaking in words far too big for her mouth, espousing concepts she only barely understood—but given her history, understood much better than any young girl should have to. Anne had found her real roots a year ago, returning to the little house where she had been born and finding that a packet of letters between her parents had been miraculously kept all this time, and Mrs. Allan had noticed a change in her since then, a new deepening of thought, as if Anne had felt the touch of something very real in the words her parents had written.

And now a further deepening had come, as Anne finally let go of the childish fancies that had represented love to her all these years and opened her heart to the real thing, to the real man who had been at her side all along. It had been clear to Mrs. Allan even when they were young children that there was something extraordinarily steadfast in Gilbert's nature, that his heart would be given only once. And despite her dislike of encouraging the often silly playing at love children tended to do, it was easy to see that Gilbert had eyes for only one girl amongst the bevy who had made up Avonlea's young people. That his enduring fidelity had finally broken through the mists of Anne's dreams and brought her into an understanding of her own heart was no surprise to Mrs. Allan now. The Anne who had written to her over the years had been developing and maturing, and she was ready now for the joys and sorrows life would bring her.

Quick tears came to Mrs. Allan's eyes, as they did so often when she was alone and lost in thought, as she remembered her own bridehood, the first joyous days of marriage—the birth of her son, the crowning glory, the missing piece that made her life come together … and then the long illness, the days watching as the chubby cheeks became thinner, the rosy skin became paler, the life ebbed away from the body of her firstborn. She prayed Anne would never know pain like that; if she could have, she would have prevented anyone from ever knowing pain like that again.

She took a deep breath, turning her face up to the sun. Being outdoors helped. He had loved to play outside, and it made her feel closer to him to be out here working in her garden. Back at home—in Avonlea, she reminded herself, which was no longer home—parishioners had promised her they would keep flowers on his grave, make it clear that he wasn't forgotten. And how could he be, when she kept him in her heart every day?

Taking another look at the rosebush, she thought of new life: the roses that would bloom for years to come; the seed that had taken root within herself that would bring another bundle of joy into the world before the summer bloomed again next year; of Anne and Gilbert, set to walk a path of their own making together. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning," she said softly to herself.


	16. Stella

_Thank you all for reading!_

* * *

The deed was done. The train was in motion; there was no getting off or backing out now. Not that Stella wanted to. She had been glad to sign the contract with the school far out in the west—they were paying her well, and it promised to be a challenge. At least, the letters from the headmistress made it sound like a challenge. Probably, Stella thought, when she got there she would find that a private girls' school for the daughters of wealthy lumber magnates would not be nearly as different from being the schoolma'am of a country school filled with farmers' and storekeepers' children. Still, it would be a change. Native tribes, Chinese immigrants, Americans looking for work in the lumber yards … none of that was to be found on sleepy old P.E.I., much as she loved it.

On the other hand, she was leaving everything she knew behind. Family, friends, the safety and comfort of understanding the people around her inside and out. Not that she had ever felt like one of them—much like Anne, she had always been a bit of a fish out of water, living too much in books to truly connect with the people around her whose lives were focused more on the here and now. Possibly she could have focused more on the here and now, she thought wryly, and then she might have been able to outfit herself more thoroughly before she left. But then, that would just have been more to carry.

She smiled at the thought, sinking back into her seat and looking out the window. She couldn't wait to see all of Canada, the forests and the prairies and the mountains and the lakes, and to write long descriptive letters back to her former roommates. Thinking of Patty's Place, Stella wondered what they were all doing now. Priscilla had been vacillating over a school posting even farther away than Stella's—she hadn't decided, last Stella had heard, but that had been some time ago. Phil was married to her Jo, of course, and Aunt Jimsie back in her old home with the cats. And Anne … Stella had been pleased to get the letter with her friend's good news, but had wondered if it would be enough. Marriage, children, the joys of the hearth—would they give Anne enough "scope for imagination," as she used to say in their old Queen's days? Anne's writing was just starting to take off, magazines beginning to respond to the sketches she sent them. Stella had been one of the few unsurprised, and pleased, by Anne's rejection of Roy Gardiner, because she thought her friend had a great deal to offer the world that marriage would stifle. Gilbert was a better match for her than Roy, no question about that, and foredestined for Anne for the start, but a busy doctor wouldn't be able to give his wife the freedom to be more than wife and mother and helpmeet, much as he might want to. And after how whole-souledly Gilbert had thrown himself into his work at Redmond, Stella was certain he would be the same way as a doctor, body and mind and heart constantly engaged. Anne would be left with the mundane details of everyday life on her hands, and what would she do with her imagination, her soaring intelligence and dreams, then?

Stella shook her head. It was, of course, not her business, and Anne would be very happy, that went without saying. And they weren't marrying in haste—there would be years yet to come for Anne to work on her writing and teach her students and stretch her wings as far as they could go, and Stella hoped those years would be enough.

For herself, she would travel to the west, to the farthest shore of her native land, and she would build herself a life there, something of her own, before she considered sharing it with someone else.


	17. Aunt Jamesina

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* * *

"Shoo! Out of here at once, you cat, you!"

Rusty sat in the middle of the pantry floor, blinking at her, pretending with all the limited artifice he owned that he hadn't been trying to climb up to get the butter she had imprudently left out.

"You don't fool me any, Rusty-coat," Jamesina told him.

He blinked again, got to his feet, and sauntered away, for all the world as though he had simply decided to go on his own, and not at all because she was holding the business end of a broom out to shoo him forcefully if necessary. Watching him, she shook her head with a fond smile. To think that once upon a time she had shared her home with only the Sarah-cat, stately and dignified, and now she had Joseph the lazy and Rusty the scapegrace to liven up the place. It was enough to keep a woman single, Jamesina thought with a certain amount of relief.

Before she had gone to live with the girls at Patty's Place, she had been very close to yielding to the pleas of one or another of the widowers who liked to drop in and call on Sunday afternoons. Never, ever would she have admitted it to that flightly Philippa, but Jamesina had managed to charm her widowers just as thoroughly as if they too had been named Alec and Alonso, and had been as decidedly unable to choose between them—or not to choose them, as the case might be.

Now she kept them entertained and charmed, but she was far less likely to give up the freedom of her life on their behalf, or on any man's. Those four lovely girls had given her a new lease on life, and she intended to enjoy it to the fullest.

She missed them, now that she was back at home. Her own dear house was lovely, and her friends and neighbors and their lives as interesting as they had been before, but it was awfully quiet at night, without whispers and giggles and late night feasts and the scratch of a pen from someone sitting up late to study. As she cleaned up Rusty's mess, Jamesina tried to imagine what they must all be doing. Priscilla and Stella were both on their way to new adventures, and she worried about them, just as she did her daughter far away doing her missionary work. Philippa was in the slums with her Reverend Jonas. Knowing Philippa, she was making a go of it. Jamesina would never have said as much to her, but she had a lot of faith in Philippa's gumption and her stick-to-itiveness once her mind was made up. She had grown so much during her college years, and Jamesina was proud of her. Although that, again, was something she would never tell her—Philippa thought too much of her own gumption as it was; it wouldn't do to let her know she had been right all along. And Anne was back in her beloved Avonlea, and finally sensibly engaged to that fine young man. Jamesina had watched that sad tale unfold with a certain amount of concern for Anne's well-being, but she had held her peace, believing that girls needed to make their own mistakes. Goodness knew she had, she mused, smiling to herself as she stood in the pantry leaning on her broom. And been better for them, all things considered. A life without mistakes sounded good, but how very dull! No, Anne's life had been her own to live as she saw fit, and certainly there had never been anything wrong with Roy Gardiner that bit of livening up couldn't have fixed. He would have been a fine catch for any girl. Perhaps not as suited to bring Anne out of her dreamy ways into real life as Gilbert, but she would have been happy with Roy if she'd chosen him, Jamesina believed. Nonetheless, Gilbert was the better choice, and Jamesina was glad Anne had finally awakened to that. She would rest easier about her now.

A crash from another room brought her back to the present, and Jamesina whirled around, crying, "You cats get down from there right now!", even though she knew they wouldn't listen. Nothing like surrounding yourself with creatures who had minds of their own to liven up old age and keep the creeping dullness from settling in, she thought, feeling young as any of her girls as she hurried to see what Rusty and Joseph had done now. Who needed widowers when you had cats?


	18. Roy Gardiner

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

Lifting his head, Roy Gardiner gazed out the window, not seeing the beauty of the manicured lawn and caefully tended flowers in his abstraction. "Forlorn," he murmured. "Lovelorn? No. Scorn? Never that. Unborn? No, not quite right. Adorn. That's it. 'When those lost words your lips adorn …' Yes." With a nod of satisfaction, he looked down at the paper before him and began to write, the ink flowing rapidly across the page in his perfect copperplate handwriting. This might well be his masterpiece, this ode to love fairly won that slipped out of one's grasp just as you thought you had caught it.

For a moment he saw Anne's white face and distressed eyes in his memory, but that felt uncomfortably real, so he banished the image and retreated into the solace of the poetry, of the rhyme and the beautiful words that took a moment that could have been painful and ugly and elevated it into something almost noble.

He worked for another hour, perfecting several lines. The poem wasn't nearly finished, but it was coming along, and he hummed softly to himself as he put the papers carefully away.

His sister Dorothy came in as he closed the desk. There was a letter in her hand, and she looked concerned. When she saw him, she held the letter down by her side, as if she hoped he hadn't noticed it, and forced a smile. "You look cheerful. How's the poem coming?"

"Well enough. What do you have there?"

"What?"

"The letter you're holding." He looked pointedly down at her hand.

"Oh, that? Just some news from an old school chum." But she looked guilty. Dorothy never could lie with a straight face.

"Which one?" he demanded, growing suspicious. Again he saw that anguished look on Anne's face, heard those words that tore straight through him, and he pushed the image and the sound out of his memory, safely away where they couldn't hurt.

Annoyance flashed across Dorothy's face, and then guilt and sympathy. "Anne. She's … she's getting married."

"To Gilbert Blythe," Roy finished, his fist clenching. He'd known it. Known it all along. It had been in the sparkle of Anne's eyes when Gilbert was near, the way words danced from her lips so gaily in his hearing, the times she glanced over her shoulder to see if Gilbert was watching. It had certainly been in the way Gilbert looked at her when he thought Anne couldn't see him, the studious way he kept his distance and pretended to be fascinated by that bore of a Christine Stuart. Roy had never been fooled by that relationship—there was nothing loverlike between them. But he had taken Gilbert's longing for the yearning of a suitor whose hand had been spurned; he had taken Anne's glances and vivacity as tokens of her triumph over Gilbert. It had never occurred to him that he didn't have Anne safely nestled in his hands like a bird until she had already flown.

"Yes," Dorothy said, confirming his guess, not that he had needed her to.

For another flash, Roy saw the white face there in the gazebo, but for the last time. It was over, she was gone, and she had someone else. He, too, would find someone else. He wondered what she would look like.

"Are you all right?" Dorothy asked.

"Yes, quite well. Shall we go for a walk?"

"I'd like that. Let me get my coat."

As she hurried from the room, Roy thought of the poem, nearly finished. It was lovely; he would treasure it.


	19. John Blythe

_These next two, Gilbert's parents, were a challenge, because we get so little detail about them in the books. Hopefully you like where I've gone with them! Thanks for reading!_

* * *

Straightening up with some difficulty, John Blythe patted the cow affectionately on the hip. She was still a good milker, despite her advancing age. He stretched, feeling the pain in his lower back that came from bending over on the milking stool, reflecting that the cow wasn't the only one who wasn't getting any younger. Still, the farm came along, and with the help of his hired hands he could manage a good many years yet, he was sure. Sometimes he wished Gilbert had been more of a farmer. It would have been nice to have someone to leave the place to. But there, a person couldn't help the talents he was born with, and Gilbert had his mother's brains, and the fine, curious, sensitive soul of a doctor. He would make a good one, and that was enough to satisfy John Blythe. A son any man would be proud of.

He hefted the milk bucket, turning to carry it back into the house, and stopped short, nearly spilling some, when he saw his son standing in the barn door. His eye went first to Gilbert's face, searching anxiously for any sign of a renewal of the boy's recent illness. Having their only son hover so close to death had brought John and Martha together as never before, clinging to one another as they prayed for the life of their child. He had another chance now—they had another chance—but John was still terribly afraid Gilbert would overwork himself again and undo all the progress he had made toward good health.

But today the boy's cheeks were ruddy and his shoulders straight, and John breathed a sigh of relief.

"Here, Dad, let me get that for you." Gilbert reached for the milk pail.

"I can do it."

Gilbert smiled. "I know you can. Let me do it anyway."

John surrendered the bucket reluctantly, still feeling as though the boy was trying to say something about his fitness for the work, but not willing to have an argument about it. "You look good today, son."

The boy looked at him sideways, as if he had his own suspicions that he was being mollycoddled. He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable, and John braced himself for the opposite side of the argument he had just decided not to have. "Dad, I have to tell you something."

"Oh?"

"I … proposed to Anne again."

John frowned. The boy had never told them what happened the first time, but rumor had run its usual course and word had eventually gotten back to them—and John had cursed himself for a fool at the time that he hadn't guessed for himself. It had been in the pain in Gilbert's eyes and in his shortened letters to his mother and in how hard he had thrown himself into his work, and in how thin he had been when he'd come home the next time. It was John's belief that Anne's rejection of Gilbert's proposal had led eventually to the boy's recent illness. But he kept those thoughts to himself. Whatever he might have thought about it over the years, Gilbert hadn't thought of another girl since the Cuthberts had adopted their stubborn red-head—who took after Marilla Cuthbert enough to have been her own natural-born child, John thought somewhat sourly. When he had thought the two of them might make a match of it before, it had taken some of the sting out of that long-ago memory and allowed John to remember why he had kept company with Marilla to begin with. Later all the bitterness had returned, when the girl turned his son down and broke Gilbert's heart. Oh, not that the boy had said anything. He had made every effort to be cheerful about it and keep his hurt to himself—but John remembered that feeling all too well, and had been able to see through the pretense to the real suffering underneath.

Still, sometimes a man had to try again just to assure himself of the outcome, and if that was what Gilbert had done, John wasn't going to criticize him for it. "And?" he prompted, when Gilbert didn't continue.

Ah. It was all there in the brightening of Gilbert's eyes and the smile on his face. "She said yes," he admitted, almost shyly.

"And … you're sure this is what you want?"

Disappointment darkened Gilbert's face. "Dad."

"After everything, I have a right to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into."

"She needed some time to be sure of me. And herself."

"Well, if you're certain, son, I'll trust you to know what you want. You always have."

"I do, Dad. I promise."

"When's the big day, then?"

"Not for a long while. I have to finish my studies first."

"Good boy," John approved, glad the two of them weren't rushing into anything. "Have you told your mother?"

"Not yet."

"Well, don't keep her waiting!"

Gilbert's smile widened and he hurried his steps on into the house where his mother would be watching anxiously, wondering what they were talking about. Noticing that Gilbert had taken the milk pail, John turned back to the barn to do a few more chores—and incidentally, to hide himself away a bit while the boy talked to Martha … as well as to give some thought to the dreams of his own youth and where they might have gone if things had been different. Not that he would change a thing about where he had come to in the end, but it was nice to think about bygone days now that the sting was out of the memory.


	20. Mrs Blythe

_Thank you all for reading!_

* * *

Martha Blythe looked out her window, watching her husband and son come toward the door, contrasting Gilbert's strong carriage and broad shoulders with John's stoop, increasing every year, it seemed. John worked hard, but he kept healthy, for all that. And Gilbert—she was glad to see the color restored to his cheeks and the spring in his step. For too long her son had come home to her pale from study and unhappiness, with a slowness to his walk that he had never had before. He had worked too hard in college, at work that didn't use the body or restore the energy. Not that she wasn't proud of him—what mother wouldn't want her son to be a doctor, to spend his life helping people and saving lives? But she worried that he didn't take enough care of his own life in his zeal to be ready to care for others.

It hadn't helped that he'd lost the dream he'd set his heart on so hard. If she lived to be a hundred, Martha would never understand why Anne Shirley couldn't see past her nose to what a wonderful couple she and Gilbert would make, or how happy they could be together. A body only had to spend a few minutes watching them together to see how they sparkled in each other's presence, how they completed each other's thoughts.

It had hurt that Gilbert hadn't talked to her about the break with Anne until after she had already heard it from a dozen sharp, wagging tongues and pushed him to talk about it … but then, she understood. He had had to keep his feelings close all this time because any hint of anything romantic would have spooked Anne, so young and innocent at heart for all her big words and fancy speeches. So he had learned to be close-mouthed in matters near his heart so as to avoid saying the right thing to the right person at the wrong time. Still, a mother could tell, and she had been able to see that he hadn't given up, for all that Anne's name crossed his lips so casually.

He came in the house with the pail of milk, handing it over with that boyish smile she had seen all too seldom in the past few years. "Saved Dad the trip, Mother."

"I'm sure he was properly grateful."

Gilbert laughed. They both knew how prickly John was about the limitations of age and with what poor grace he accepted help. "He found another chore to do pretty fast, at that." He glanced out the window. "Or maybe he wanted to let me tell you myself."

"Tell me what, son?" she asked. "Put that milk away in the pantry, will you?"

He did so, while she waited and wondered what the news could be. Dinner bubbled and sizzled merrily on the stove, but she disregarded it. Another minute or two without stirring wouldn't make a difference, and John wouldn't be in for some time yet from his chores anyway.

Gilbert turned from the pantry after covering the milk with the cloth that lay there for the purpose. "I … took a walk today."

"Did you? Did you find anything?" This couldn't be what he had to tell her, could it? Discovery of an ancient apple tree or some such? Not but what she was glad to see him outside again, hale and hearty, tramping around Avonlea, but it hardly seemed like something to hold up a good meal over.

"I wasn't alone." There was something almost shy in the way he looked at her.

Martha turned toward the stove, turning the slices of potatoes. They were browning nicely, she noticed absently. "Weren't you?" she asked, keeping her voice casual. There was really only one thing this could be, one thing that could put the spring back in her boy's step and the color back in his cheeks, and he needed this, deserved it. If it wasn't … she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"I was with Anne. Mother?" He looked anxious, as if waiting for her response.

She turned back to him. "Out with it." She couldn't quite keep the smile off her face, and Gilbert smiled, too, in relief.

"I asked her to marry me again. And this time … she said yes."

"Well, it's about time." The words were out before she could stop them, and she quickly added a smile to take the sting out.

"It was worth the wait … and more," Gilbert said softly. He was looking past her, over her shoulder, as if remembering the moment it had happened. It had, indeed, been worth the wait, if it made him look like that. "You … you're happy for us, aren't you?" he asked, that anxious look back on his face.

"It's what you want, son. Of course I am."

He sighed in relief. "Oh, I'm so glad." And he stepped forward, opening his arms, and Martha held on to him, thinking of the little boy in his overalls, and the young man with his schoolbooks and the earnest college student and knowing this meant she was giving up her boy. He would never be hers again, not really. But he had what he had always wanted, and she would be happy for him.


	21. Anne

_Thank you all for reading!_

* * *

Anne turned sorrowfully to Gilbert, looking up into his face, trying to memorize his features, as if they weren't already burnt on her heart. "To think that this is the last night of our golden summer."

"We have made the most out of the time, haven't we?" He took her hand, holding it in both of his.

"We have. Glorious rambles, long chats, all the joys of true companionship." There had been other joys, the beginnings of the intimacy they would enjoy one day as a married couple, that Anne was too shy to allude to yet. She could feel her cheeks heating at the thought. They heated more, her heart pounding, as Gilbert's hazel eyes warmed with the thought of those same moments. He drew her against him, holding her there in his arms, where she could contemplate the present and the future safe in the knowledge that they were consecrated to one another, and nothing they did together would be wrong. Her first taste of what that kind of intimacy could feel like had been heady and exciting—but overwhelming, too. In some ways, she wasn't sorry for the time and distance that would separate them. Much as she would miss Gilbert, their acknowledgement of their love had been so intense, coming as it had after Gilbert had nearly died, and they had had only a few weeks to throw themselves headlong into the enjoyment of that love. Anne felt she had never had the chance to really catch her breath, to stop and look around her at the rapid alteration of the dreams she had cherished since she was a young girl, the dreams in which Gilbert Blythe had been nothing more than a friend and companion.

She was the better for the change, of course she was, and she wouldn't have had it any other way—but it was still a change, and the reality had been so much deeper, sweeter, more consuming than her dreams had ever come close to being that she had felt herself swept along with it like a tide. It was different for Gilbert, who had swum so far through choppy waters to get here that he had readily, completely surrendered himself to the undertow pulling him out to sea, but Anne hadn't even known she was in the water until after Gilbert's illness, and she was still getting the feel of it.

"I'll dream every night of the next three years of the day I make you my wife," Gilbert whispered huskily into her hair.

"And the home o' dreams we'll make together," Anne agreed. That, at least, was a familiar idea to anchor herself to. There was less frightening reality to furnishing imaginary rooms in nonexistent houses. Not that she didn't look forward to the reality—waking up to love had been romantic beyond her wildest dreams—but she was glad to have the time to get used to it.

Gilbert released her, saying cheerfully, "It'll be a hard slog, but we'll make it, Anne-girl."

"I almost envy you, going back to Kingsport. Go by Patty's Place for me occasionally, see if Miss Patty and Miss Maria are still knitting?"

"You don't expect them to stop, do you?"

"No, but … just to know you'd been to the dear old place. And the middy's grave in St. John's, you'll take flowers?"

"When I have time," he promised. "When are you going to Summerside?"

"Mrs. Lynde and I will go early next week to find me a lodging, and then I move there in two more weeks. Doesn't the name Summerside have such a cheerful flavour to it? Oh, Gilbert, I just know the next three years will fly by, filled with useful work and the opportunity to really have an impact on the students' lives."

"You won't mind giving up teaching at the end of it, will you?"

"Oh, no, not if …" She could feel the blush again, but pushed boldly through. "Not if we have a few young lives of our own to raise."

"A houseful!" he said, hugging her again. "At least five."

"I'm certain there will be twins. They're my destiny, you know."

Gilbert took her face in his hands. "As long as you're my destiny, I'm content to take whatever else comes along. Oh, Anne, what a long time it was, waiting and wondering."

She clung to him. "Don't think of that. When I remember what a goose I was, how I hurt you … I'm so sorry. I promise to spend the rest of our lives making up for it."

And she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, to seal her promise.


	22. Gilbert

As the train left the station, for as long as he could see her with his head craned around to look back, Gilbert kept his eyes fastened on Anne's beautiful face. Even as it faded into the distance, her expression, starry of eye and bright of smile, stayed with him. She was his now, he exulted, leaning his head back against the cushions of the train seat. His for good and all, fairly won. And it had been a long contest—from that ignominious and much-regretted moment when he had called her "Carrots" to the last exalted kiss to send him off on his way back to Kingsport. He had fought for every inch of ground, and he had lost and fallen back and waited to come forth anew into the fray. But at last the war was won. A few more years of patient waiting and there would never be another parting between them, never another moment when she wasn't his and he wasn't hers. They had been destined for each other, he and she. Many times he had despaired of ever convincing Anne of that … but then would come a puzzled glance from those grey eyes, a glance that said for a moment she saw what could be, and that would hearten him for the fight anew.

Those Redmond years … God, what torture those had been, when they should have been the best years of their lives! They should have held hands in the cemetery and studied together in Patty's Place and dreamed their dreams of the future they were working toward. Instead, Anne's starry-eyed dreams of something bigger than reality had tricked her into believing love was something else, something other than the man who had waited for her since they were eleven years old, something other than a future at his side as partner and friend and spouse. He had lost hope, then, for a good long time, had searched within himself for something else to work toward, and had found it in his calling. If he couldn't have Anne, he would have a fulfilling life helping people. He had thrown himself into that idea, into being the best that he could. Fate had put Christine Stuart into his path, which had made things easier—he could squire Christine to events and keep anyone from thinking he was available, as much to avoid Anne's pity as to preserve himself from the advances of other girls. Christine was a good sort, an entertaining companion, but he had never felt any particular sorrow that she was involved with someone else.

Watching Anne with Roy Gardiner, on the other hand, had been a particular torment. Oh, the impotent fury of knowing she had found exactly the tall, dark, mysterious man of her dreams! Knowing that Gardiner was dull to the tips of his fingers, no match for Anne's quick wit, made Gilbert gnash his teeth in private, for all that he preserved an uninterested mask in public.

But that was over now, he reminded himself, unclenching his fingers from the arm of the train seat. Gardiner was nowhere. He, Gilbert Blythe, had remained true of heart and won the hand of the fair lady, as had always been meant to be. And not much longer now before they found themselves at the hearth of Anne's "home o' dreams". Anne had already described that home in a thousand different ways, and Gilbert imagined she would come up with several thousand more before it became a reality. But what shape that home took didn't matter much to Gilbert. As long as Anne was in it, it would truly be the home of his dreams, all of them come true.

* * *

 _Thank you all for your enthusiastic response to this story!_


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